Designers Introduced To India`s Amazing Artisans

February 09, 1986|By Joseph Giovannini, New York Times News Service.

Crafted by Indians, conceived by internationally known designers and displayed at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, the furniture, clothing, shoes, toys and objects being exhibited through Feb. 23 in ``The Golden Eye`` hardly seem like the material of a trade show. The objects are not even for sale.

But a type of trade show it is, despite its elegance and museum presentation. More important than the beauty of the individual objects is their potential to give Indian village crafts a global market by linking Western consumers to artisans through contemporary design. The exhibition shows what can be produced when the right craftsmen in India are found for the right designs. Among the approximately 6,000 people who already have visited the popular exhibition have been delegations from Bergdorf Goodman and Bloomingdale`s; designers and architects have inquired about commissioning Indian artisans.

``What has been accomplished by the craftsmen and designers represents the best in quality and styling,`` said Ira Neimark, chairman of Bergdorf`s, which is now in the midst of its own India promotion. ``The match has potential for every classification of merchandise. We believe we`ll keep a presence in India--we might expand.``

According to Rajeev Sethi, the Indian designer who paired 11 Western designers and 265 artisans to create the show, crafts in India have undergone a long erosion--because of low earnings, industrialization and the lowered social status of craftsmen in a country increasingly aspiring to white-collar occupations. Often, craftsmen have been reduced to producing cliched tourist goods.

``Sequined elephants and brass ashtrays hardly do justice to the work these craftsmen are able to do,`` said Sethi, who mounted the show at the Cooper-Hewitt with project coordinator Zette Emmons.

A former designer with Pierre Cardin in Paris, and one who wears the traditional flowing kurta and pajama, Sethi believes India`s crafts can be reinvigorated with fresh designs more relevant to international markets. ``The show is an exploration of the crafts industry as a complement to big industry,`` said Sethi. ``The fact is that these cottage and small crafts industries still employ 16 million people who produce about $5 billion worth of goods a year, including gems and jewelry.``

Under the auspices of the State Trading Corp. and Sona, a government export agency for handicrafts, Sethi has started what he hopes can become a comprehensive computer-aided access list that indicates the location of artisans, their materials and techniques.

The designer says the list, still in its formative stages, could become a key for making small crafts work as a large-scale enterprise. For example, the craftsman who made a low, streamlined garden bench of red Indian sandstone

--designed by Mario Bellini, a Milanese architect--was found only when one of Sethi`s design assistants chanced on a meticulously carved stone sign in a village, and located carver Kesaria Ram by word of mouth. The listing promises to systematize the process.

The first room of ``The Golden Eye``--the baronial entry hall of the Cooper-Hewitt--was transformed by Hugh Casson, an English architect, into a composite Indian street, with balconies, trellised windows, a door and a gateway. Some parts of the street are designed as furniture usable in a Western home--one ornate inlaid balcony is a chest. But beyond being furniture that doubles as a streetscape, the pieces make up a directory of existing craft techniques: carved stonework; metal, wood and stone inlay; intricate woodwork.

For the first two weeks, a number of craftsmen worked in the exhibition, using remarkably few tools to execute their crafts. Shamin Kahn from Aga, for example, tailored semiprecious stones with a bow and stone wheel. Placed next to many exhibits--such as the spotted black-on-white inlaid marble table designed by Italian architect Ettore Sottsass--are the rudimentary tools used in making the pieces.

Among the other displays are damascened and steel cutlery--designed by Frei Otto, a German architect, and elegantly curved to fit the hand. Otto says the craftsman who made the pieces was fascinated to learn how hands fold around a fork, and why Westerners eat with utensils; like any traveler, he was interested in learning about another culture. In working with Indian craftsmen, the architect said: ``You`re lost if you talk about money or contracts. Nothing can be done without establishing a personal relationship.`` ``I strongly intend to continue and would like to create a full Bellini Indian collection,`` said Bellini. ``They are very skillful men, with their precious hands and, if you like, their golden eye. They often work in a little shop, on the floor under a single light bulb. You have much less restriction working with them than with industry.``